Daily news and top headlines for broadband communications engineering and design professionals

Movie and music piracy web operations are thriving by using deceptive practices to lure legitimate advertising from companies like Comcast, Google, Microsoft, Walmart and Ford, often concealing their illicit activities so advertising brands remain unaware.

While online video advertising continues a very aggressive and impressive growth trajectory, some folks are starting to dig in to what exactly they are getting with those impressions, and the story is not looking quite as rosy as perhaps everyone thought. (Contributed article.)

TV Everywhere and multi-screen delivery make managing ad insertion increasingly complicated. This Technology has enhanced its digital ad insertion (DAI) system with a set of new capabilities that makes it easier for programmers and network operators to manage the ad insertion process.

The two companies have developed a joint software solution enabling video service providers to coordinate multi-screen television ad campaigns across traditional linear, linear addressable, video-on-demand, catch-up, network DVR, and over-the-top streams.

Verizon alerted customers it’s “enhancing” it Relevant Mobile Advertising program to incorporate information gathered from desktop and laptop Internet habits. The company will assign registered users an “anonymous, unique identifier” that will gather information about what websites the user visits on their desktop or laptop.

Harmonic’s multiscreen transcoding and delivery system now supports workflows compatible with Adobe Primetime's ad insertion capabilities. This workflow is compatible with the Adobe Primetime platform, which enables pay-TV service providers and broadcasters to insert advertising as well as manage program substitution and blackouts for any device with access to the web.

Working with Invidi Technologies, Cox Media has started addressable advertising trials that target viewers by their geographic locations. The two companies said they have entered into an “exploratory agreement” to measure the effectiveness of addressable advertising delivered according to specific viewer geographic, demographic, and other pre-determined viewer qualifiers.

On Thursday Charter Media will open the doors on its new production facility in Madison, Wis. To mark the occasion, Charter will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony with the Madison Chamber of Commerce. Charter Media is the sales division of Charter Communications.

The reported price is $320 million. Where many ad insertion systems tend to focus on the delivery of ads that are appropriate for subscribers, Freewheel gives MVPDs like Comcast the ability to control who can sell ads into their content. Freewheel has associated tools for managing the financial aspects of the ad streaming business.

Welcome to addressable TV, an emerging technology that allows advertisers — Senate hopefuls and insurance companies alike — to pay some broadcasters to pinpoint specific homes. Eearlier this year, DirecTV and Dish Network announced a partnership that would allow political clients to reach into about 20 million households by matching up customers' identities with their satellite receive.

Technologies are being introduced and are evolving at break-neck speeds. Everybody has their fingers in everyone else’s pies. Competitors pop up, fall by the wayside, morph into allies. We not only figured out what the most important trends, technologies, companies, and people are today, but also ranked them in order of importance. Voila: the 2014 edition of the Broadband 50. Enjoy.

Using technology from recently acquired Unicorn Media, the company can now enable content providers who are developing apps for Google Chromecast to dynamically insert ads in their content streams. Ads can be delivered on a personalized basis.

Targeted advertising? Consider recommendation engines. No matter how sophisticated your slice-and-dice process, there are only so many things to recommend, and ultimately you’re left with 50 paths to “Surf Nazis Must Die.” The process works, but only to a point.

This morning Nielsen announced the launch of its Local Buyer Reach service, which links local TV stations’ viewing information with actual consumer transactions. The service works across more than 40 buyer categories, including automotive, retail shopping, quick-service restaurants, and grocery stores.

Canoe’s certification assures programmers that they can use This Technology’s cloud-based metadata asset management system to efficiently create and distribute information about video assets for VOD and advanced advertising. The result is streamlined metadata authoring, automated input for multiple system types and efficient delivery of dynamic ads on VOD.

In its first quarterly gain of basic video subscribers in six and half years, Comcast announced this morning that it had added 43,000 video subscribers in the fourth quarter. Comcast’s robust fourth quarter earnings came on the heels of rumors that it was in talks with Charter Communications to divide up Time Warner Cable.

Comcast and NBCUniversal have struck a wide-ranging, 10-year deal with the San Francisco 49ers to provide a range of services at the new Levi’s Stadium. Hooking up professional sports stadiums with its Ethernet and Wi-Fi services is nothing for new Comcast, but the deal with the 49ers also included programming elements as well.

Simulmedia expects to improve its targeted advertising by including FourthWall’s full daily feed of anonymous, second-by-second, TV viewing data from more than 2 million U.S. homes. Simulmedia said it will match FourthWall’s viewing data to household purchase data.

Using HTML5, ActiveVideo has updated its CloudTV software platform to provide cable operators and online video providers the ability to deliver web-style interactive TV ads at scale and with increased simplicity. The key to ActiveVideo’s CloudTV Adcast platform is that it can render the ads in the cloud across legacy set-top boxes as well as in a wide range of IP devices.

The company said it has integrated its Merchandiser content marketing solution with content recommendation platforms from ThinkAnalytics, Digitalsmiths, and other vendors. Service providers can enhance their On-Demand storefronts to offer personalized recommendations alongside targeted pricing, ads, upgrades and discounts.

The media industry currently has no open, uniform method of content identification that survives compression and distribution through the supply chain. Putting such an identification method in place is a critical next step toward the establishment of an interoperable standard for all professional video content that can be used throughout the entire media ecosystem.

Comcast Spotlight has partnered with Rhiza to create customizable, multi-screen ad recommendations for Spotlight’s local, regional and national clients. Comcast Spotlight, the advertising sales division of Comcast, is using the Rhiza for Media platform, which is a web-based research and sales software offering.

AMC Networks, and ReelzChannel have both signed up to use the interactive advertising platform developed by Ensequence. Ensequence’s AdConneqt+ enables national advertisers to include interactive features in 30-second ads. The first interactive capability to be offered early next year will be RFIs.

After nearly 19 years with Cable One, Jerry McKenna will retire from his role as senior vice president-chief sales and marketing officer at the end of the month. McKenna joined Cable One in 1994 as vice president-strategic marketing before being named senior vice president-chief sales and marketing officer five years ago.